UNITED IN VALOR

Two men awarded Silver, Bronze stars for lifesaving actions in Vietnam battle

A company of Marines fought up a hill near Khe Sanh, Vietnam, on April 30, 1967. Within two days, three-quarters of them left the bomb-cratered slopes of 881 South bloodied or dead.

With 27 killed and 50 wounded in action — a 75 percent casualty rate — and new battles to fight, the heroics of some junior Marines went unrecognized.

On Friday, during a morning colors ceremony at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, two privates first class who fought on Hill 881 South, Joe Cordileone and Robert Moffatt, were honored for their valor more than 46 years ago.

Cordileone, chief deputy San Diego city attorney, was awarded a Silver Star for his “selfless and courageous actions,” according to his citation.

Moffatt, a retired cost estimator from Riverside, was awarded a Bronze Star with combat device for his “bold actions, undaunted courage, and total dedication to duty.”

“We are so proud of what you did on that terrible day,” said Brig. Gen. James Bierman, commanding general of the depot and the Western Recruiting Region. “I am sorry it took so long for these awards to work their way around to you, but I am glad they did.

“For all the other Vietnam veterans in the crowd today … in many cases the country has been very slow to say thank you and to acknowledge all your extraordinary service, but this is your day, too,” Bierman said.

The first Battle of Khe Sanh is “famous in the annals of Marine Corps history and it was at the time one of the deadliest battles of the Vietnam War. Yet there were so few awards presented,” said retired Marine Maj. Gen. John Admire, who was a lieutenant during the hill fights.

“The company was so fragmented, there was really no one left to write them. That was one of the great injustices of the time,” said Admire, 70, who retired in 1998 as commanding general of the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton.

He and other Khe Sanh veterans swapped stories at reunions and identified half a dozen veterans who deserved medals.

It took years to gather eyewitness statements and write the recommendations, then six years waiting for the Pentagon bureaucracy, but in 2009 the first three were awarded Silver Stars.

“Virtually everyone on that hill did something above and beyond the call of duty,” Admire said. Others are probably equally deserving of medals, if eyewitnesses had lived to tell their stories.

“We do the best that we can in recognizing those that we know of,” he said.

The hill

Marines had strafed the area with bombs and artillery but failed to destroy heavily defended bunkers and foxholes honeycombing 881 South.

A larger North Vietnamese force was hunkered into the charred hillside denuded of cover. When Company M, 3rd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, charged up the slope, they were slaughtered.

A platoon commander was instantly killed. The command staff was decimated.

Cordileone, a rifleman who graduated from Crawford High School in 1965, fought up the hill repeatedly to retrieve wounded comrades before they could be picked off by Vietnamese snipers. When he came to after shrapnel wounds and blood loss made him temporarily lose consciousness, Cordileone resumed his assaults up the hill.

He saved the lives of at least 10 fellow Marines that day, according to his Silver Star citation.

Moffatt was one of them. When a machine-gunner was hit by five rounds from a single burst of enemy fire, Moffatt took his place, knowing he was exposing himself to mortal danger.

He kept firing until a bullet disabled the gun, ricocheted into his head and lodged against his skull.

“Pfc. Moffatt continued to fire relentlessly until he sustained severe head wounds. His disregard for his own safety and steadfastness in continuing suppressive fires undoubtedly saved lives and inspired his fellow Marines to successfully press their assault,” his citation says.

It wasn’t until a year later that the Marines seized the hills in that area after air raids with heavier bombs. On April 30, 1967, Moffatt and Cordileone were just trying to survive and bring their friends home.

Cordileone said: “I’m not ashamed to tell you that I was a scared 19-year-old kid. I wanted to run away, because I was positive that if I stayed there I would die, and I was afraid to die.

“But I feared one thing worse than death. Before I ever set foot on Hill 881, I made up my mind that I would rather die than let down the Marine next to me. I’d rather die than leave an injured Marine unattended.

“To a Marine, that’s not heroism. I know for a fact that every other Marine on the hill felt the same way that I did. And I watched my friends give their lives honoring that code,” Cordileone said.

Moffatt doesn’t remember being afraid, just the adrenaline after the “guns up” call went out. He blacked out and woke up in a bomb crater with his blood mingling with blood from one of his wounded brothers, he said.

He spent a year recovering from the traumatic brain injury.

Today, the survivors often tell each other “Happy Birthday.” “Every day since that has been a rebirth for us. That we walked off that place alive is astonishing,” Cordileone said.

Recognition

Ray Calhoun, 66, of San Diego, was among the group awarded Silver Stars in 2009 for the battle.

“It is like you’ve got this terrible bad hangover from such an event. And to be recognized by your peers, it kind of puts an end to it finally,” he said. “It is life-changing. It is certainly heart-lightening, or load lifting.”

The award means a lot, Moffatt said. “I always knew I did the best I did, or I thought I did. But I can go to my grave with some peace of mind and say, well, somebody appreciated what I tried to do.”

But they were just doing their jobs, both veterans insisted. “I certainly know that I did no more than any other Marine or corpsman who climbed Hill 881 with me that day,” Cordileone said. “If one of us earned it, all of us did.”

Admire disagreed, in a way. Cordileone and Moffatt are humble, and “so many people were killed, and so many people had such horrendous injuries, they just feel fortunate to be alive. That was award enough,” Admire said.

“But what they did was exceptionally heroic, no denying it.

“We knew in our hearts that they deserved recognition. Their actions and their courage and their heroism was beyond belief amid the chaos and destructive nature of battle itself.”